My Star Trek One-Shots

Gabriel Lorca - Beautiful Mistakes PT 2

It started unraveling fast—strange stellar readings, hostile encounters, whispers of Terran Empire insignias burned into the shadows of fractured sensor logs.

Jessie had been in the command center, pacing, her hands behind her back in practiced Starfleet poise, but her mind had already begun to scream. Something wasn't right. The crew felt it. Even Gabriel felt it. But he played it cool. Too cool.

Then the truth exploded.

Not in gentle pieces, not with warning.

But in sharp, jagged shrapnel that tore through Jessie's world like a phaser shot to the heart.

He wasn't their Lorca. He never was.

She didn't confront him right away.

Instead, she sat in her quarters—his scent still lingering on her sheets, her fingers still remembering the feel of his hand wrapped around hers just the night before. Her mind played memories like ghosts on repeat:

Him tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

The gravel of his voice when he murmured, "You're the only one who makes me feel human."

The map he gave her. Home, always.

She wanted to scream.

Because that man—her Gabriel—didn't exist.

He was a fabrication. A mask worn by a predator.

And yet, the part that gutted her most wasn't the lie. It was the fear that somewhere in the darkness, he had still meant it.

When she finally did see him again, it was in the shadows of the mycelial chamber. He was preparing for the next step in his plan—returning to the Terran throne. He turned when he heard her boots behind him, his expression unreadable.

Jessie didn't speak at first. Just looked at him. Hard. Then: "You lied to me every single day."

Gabriel's expression flickered. "I never lied."

She laughed—a hollow, broken sound. "You pretended to be someone you weren't. You let me love you."

"I didn't make you love me."

"You didn't stop me either."

There it was. The fury in her voice. The ache he couldn't ignore.

"I needed allies," he said coldly, but his voice wasn't steady. "I needed loyalty. You were . . . convenient."

Jessie stepped closer, eyes burning. "Bullshit."

Silence pulsed between them like a heartbeat trying to restart.

"I saw you, Lorca," she whispered. "Not the mask. I saw the man underneath. And you let me believe he was real."

He clenched his jaw. "Maybe he was. For a while."

She blinked at that. Something sharp twisted in her ribs.

"Don't do that," she said, voice cracking. "Don't give me scraps of humanity now. It's too late."

He looked down, then up. There was pain in his eyes—but also defiance.

"I never planned on you," he admitted. "You were . . . a complication I didn't want. You made me hesitate. You made me care."

Jessie shook her head, but her hands trembled. "Then why not come clean? Why not tell me who you were?"

"Because you would've left."

"And you were right."

A silence fell. Cold. Still.